Addiction Recovery and Lawyer Wellbeing

Episode Notes

Transcript

Molly Ranns:

Hello, and welcome to another edition of the State Bar of Michigan’s On Balance Podcast on Legal Talk Network. I’m Molly Ranns.

JoAnn Hathaway:

And I’m JoAnn Hathaway. We are very pleased to haveBree Buchanan join us today. Bree is co-founder of the National Task Force on Lawyer Wellbeing and co-author of its 2017 groundbreaking report that launched the wellbeing and Law Movement in 2020. Bree helped create and served as the first executive director and board president of the Think Tank, the Institute for Wellbeing and Law. Prior to that, she served as director of the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program and chair of the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Program. Currently, she serves as senior advisor for Krills Strategies, a consulting firm that supports major legal employers and their efforts to promote a culture of wellbeing. Bree, could you share some more information about yourself with our listeners?

Bree Buchanan:

You bet. And I’m just so happy to be here, and one of the highlights of my work in this is to be able to work with state task forces, and so I was also able to work with Molly in just doing some support around the Michigan State Task Force on wellbeing. And so that was definitely a highlight of what I do. I’m still on the board of directors for the Institute for Wellbeing and Law, but I have the best position possible on a board. I’m the immediate past president for about three more weeks, and then I’ll get to step away and look back at hopefully what we’ve created. So I’m so happy to be here, Molly with you. I just enjoy working with you so much.

Molly Ranns:

Thank you so much, Bree. We are thrilled to have you here today and so grateful for your help and support for the Michigan Task Force on wellbeing in the law, which the Supreme Court issued an order to make an ongoing longstanding commission on wellbeing in the law from that task force. And we’re just going with that. So all very exciting things. I’m wondering if you can start out by telling our listeners what brought you into the world of lawyers assistance programs and really the wellbeing and law movement.

Bree Buchanan:

Right. Well, I really had the opportunity, I guess to live into that position. And just so just really quickly, when I showed up at law school, I was already dealing with a lot of anxiety and depression that spiked into a panic disorder by the time I got through my first semester and saw my grades and was dealing with that. I don’t think that’s an uncommon situation. I didn’t drink in law school at all, but when I got out of there and started dealing with the pressures, I had a Litigation practice doing family violence work, as you can imagine, a lot of stress, some burnout, et cetera, dealing with things like imposter syndrome that nobody even knew that in the late eighties. And so what I did, what we do in the legal profession to deal with stress or with celebration, et cetera, is that I drank used alcohol to really self-medicate, what were at the time, a lot of uncomfortable feelings.

And as that happens, I had the genetic predisposition towards an alcohol use disorder. And then over about 20 years, my drinking increased until the point when I was 45. Everything really came to a head as I had seen since with lawyers calling the Lawyer’s Assistance Program for help. I lost my marriage. That wasn’t enough to get my attention and get into recovery, but I lost my job after that. And that’s what I found so many people in the legal profession because we’re all about a reputation. And when that happened, I threw myself into recovery. I did the 12 step, I met with a therapist. I took up a serious meditation practice, everything you can think of. And then I was so fortunate at the end of a year of being just dedicating myself to recovery, I had the opportunity to go live that at the Lawyer’s Assistance Program. So I was really just embedded in a culture of recovery all the time, and I was so fortunate to be able to land there.

JoAnn Hathaway:

So Bree, while at the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program, you also went and graduated from seminary. How did that experience dovetail with your work at the Lawyer’s Assistance Program?

Bree Buchanan:

Yeah, great question. I found that it really did. For those who work in the recovery world, you have an understanding and for everybody else to let you know, a huge, huge piece of recovery is spirituality and being able to accept. I mean, this is the cornerstone of the 12 step programs, being able to accept that there is something greater than you. And so I had had a very strong spiritual life when I was younger, but had set that aside and all the busyness of life and getting back into a 12 step program really reignited my sense of spirituality and connection to a higher power. And as I tend to do, I don’t just go halfway. So I attended seminary of course, which was a wonderful adjunct to the work that I was doing and was a huge support to me.

Molly Ranns:

Bree, what do you think the greatest impediment to making advances in wellbeing in our profession is, and how do we address that?

Bree Buchanan:

I believe that here in 2023, we have achieved an awareness in the legal profession around the need to address these issues. So have awareness that it’s a problem in most corners, but the issue where we really have to get to is the point where people are willing to ask for help. And so what prevents lawyers, law students and judges from asking for help when they’re struggling and suffering and miserable, and it is the stigma and the shame that still attaches to behavioral health disorders in our society, and particularly in the legal profession, until we make it okay for people to ask for help and to take time to get that help and to have the resources they need to get that help. I feel like we haven’t really even finished the first step in this wellbeing movement, but it’s really, it’s that stigma and shame. And so one of the things I do is I do step out and tell my story. Try not to go in too much of the salacious detail, but when I get up and I speak in front of groups, if I think it’s appropriate to share in that setting, I’ll tell a little bit about my story and just start making it a practice or okay to hear somebody talk about that.

Molly Ranns:

We are now going to take a short break from our conversation with Bree Buchanan to thank our sponsors.

JoAnn Hathaway:

Welcome back. We are thrilled to be here today with Lawyer wellbeing expert Bree Buchanan. Bree, we hear a lot about excessive work demands for lawyers, but what about the drivers of poor wellbeing for law students and judges?

Bree Buchanan:

I think a lot of the drivers in regards for law students is number one around that unwillingness to ask for help. And there was national research done back in, I believe it was published in 2016, and really digging in and asking a lot of questions of law students and what we learned, just an incredibly strong resistance for asking for help. So what law students do is they, and I’ve gone to so many opening sessions, orientations for law schools and say, theBar examiners do not want to know if you’ve gone to therapy. But it seems the law students tend to not really believe that they don’t have to report that. And there is this persistent belief that if they access any services while they’re in law school, that they have to report that to the admissions process and that then they won’t become a lawyer and they won’t ever get a job and they’ll be living under a Breedge.

And that sort of thing is the hardest thing to convince them that it’s truly is okay. And then there’s some states still where actually they’re kind of right. It’s not so okay to reveal those things. There can be blowback on them, but by and large in today’s date, that’s not an issue. And so one of the things that, by the way, we’re doing with the think tank in supporting states to actually remove those questions about mental health and substance use in the past. So that’s a big issue for the law students and for the judiciary. I think one of the drivers of poor wellbeing for them, of course, the pressure of what they’re doing, but really just the isolation when you get on the bench. I’ve heard a friend of mine who was a judge say, the first thing that happens is you lose your first name.

All these other lawyers in the courthouse that you had relationships with, you’re no longer John, my friend, your now judge, or Your Honor. And so they have an immediate barrier that’s placed between them and others. And what we know is that isolation is a tremendous breeding ground for depression, substance abuse, anxiety, a lot of the things that we want to combat. It is also incredibly hard for the judges to feel like they can ask for help, particularly in states where they run for reelection. When I was at the Lawyer’s Assistance Program in Texas, we had the privilege of running the National Judicial helpline. So I got to talk to judges with some regularity. And for example, I would hear a county judge and maybe a smaller jurisdiction, I can’t go to the therapist in my town because somebody will see my car parked in the parking lot. We’re dealing with just sort of nitty-gritty fears like that, and it’s about their willingness and ability to freely ask for help and access resources.

Molly Ranns:

Bree, thank you so much for Breenging up the issue with the affidavit of personal history or the questions asked for mental health. I will just add that we’re very proud of Michigan in that in February of 2021, we actually changed our questions and replaced the questions that focused on diagnosis or treatment to focus much more on conduct. And we replaced those with the questions from the NCBE. So I’m really looking forward to how that transforms students’ experience.

Bree Buchanan:

Absolutely. And that is just foundational and the first step to really making significant changes. And there’s a good number of states that have done that, and I am really looking forward to some follow-up research that tries to go back and see does that change the law student’s willingness to seek assistance.

Molly Ranns:

Absolutely. So you talked about those excessive work demands for lawyers, and of course now we’ve talked about those drivers of poor wellbeing for students and for judges. Can you elaborate a little bit on what can be done to support the law students and the judges? These two groups?

Bree Buchanan:

I think for law students is to be able to, one of the things that we’ve seen that may be really helpful is to make sure that we’re continually talking about the need to create a routine of self-care for the entirety of one’s career. That this is an issue, that behavioral health disorders are very prevalent in the lingual profession. You need to be aware of that and plan for how you’re going to deal with that. And so I think that is one way that the law students can get at this. There’s also been a real move to create curriculum around this and embed that within just the regular core curriculum of the law school for an instance, having that as a component of a professional responsibility class, and I know there’s at least one state where to sit for theBar exam, the law school has to certify that their students have had at least three hours of education around these issues, which is I think is a great way to ensure that you have some attention to this over the course of their law school career.

So those are just a couple of ideas. I think for the judges, one of the things that we’ve encouraged in that task force report, and since that time is for judicial example, judicial educational associations, judicial membership associations create opportunities for peer support among the judiciary. We know that it’s just the nature of the game. Judges want to talk to other judges, they want to be taught by other judges. So we have nationally had developed a small peer support program. So a judge could call if they are experiencing maybe major depression, want to talk to somebody who has also dealt with that situation. We could match them with a judge in another state and give them somebody to talk to that’s walked that walk that’s been there themselves. And that is a piece also of helping them break out of that isolation, a really valuable thing to do. And then the other piece of it is just as we do across the whole legal profession, is about education and awareness and making sure that at the annual conferences that the judges go to, that there’s some programming around this to create a space and opportunity to just talk about these issues.

JoAnn Hathaway:

Bree, it seems that the legal profession has really begun to acknowledge the extent of behavioral health issues among its people. What is the next big step beyond acknowledging that problem and

Bree Buchanan:

Breaking stigma? I think starting to look at what are the systemic changes that can occur within, if you’re talking about for the disciplinary and the regulators, what within the way the regulators do their work, for example, could be changed to support their wellbeing. Same thing for the judiciary, et cetera. So just creating spaces for them to be able to, again, talk about these things. And I think one thing in regard to the idea of around systemic change, it’s so important to lean into that because one of the things that we are seeing within the wellbeing and law movement, what we have realized is that it seems like the profession sort of pick the low hanging fruit, which is to teach individual lawyers, judges, and law students about self-care. And that’s great, and that’s important, but what it does is it puts the onus upon the individual to fix whatever their problem is.

And there certainly is a piece of that too. We have our individual responsibility for ourselves, but there’s also a lot about the different systems within the lingual profession that are set up that are really burdensome and that you can have the greatest meditation practice and the greatest exercise program, but given what you’re up against and the way things are set up, maybe with your employer for example, there’s no way that you’re going to really have a life where you can adequately control the side effects, I guess, of grueling work. And so often our minds go to big law and law firms where that work culture, incessant work culture is so predominant.

Molly Ranns:

Thank you for sharing that, Bree, because it reminds me a lot of times when I’m in schools and talking with students, I have students tell me that perhaps just folks that are overly depressed or anxious or substance abusers go into law school. And while that’s a valid hypothesis, I mean, I think about this study out of Harvard, I think it was 2017 with 886 students, and nearly 70% of those students indicated that the troubles they were experiencing were brand new to one L. I love that you Breeng that up because we’re talking about individual things that we can do, but the reality is that while we’re doing those things, systemic change also needs to take place. I think a lot of times folks feel like they’re meditating and they’re doing yoga, and they’re walking and they’re doing these things, but they’re still struggling that they’re just not doing wellness well enough. And so unfortunately reminding them that, yes, there are things you can do, but this is also a systemic issue that needs to come from the top down.

Bree Buchanan:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I often hear things that are within the system like the billable hour, and that is one issue that is sort of the big 800 pound gorilla in the room to deal with. But there are a lot of other things, too, besides the billable hour. There’s the way compensation is structured, the way the compensation practices run, the attitudes that I’ve seen in firms that, well, yes, that Division or that Litigation group, they can go on vacation, but we don’t. We’re the tough ones and we don’t do that sort of thing. And we see that over and over. So even within, if you have a law firm that’s dedicated from the management and the professional development people and HR people all are, yes, wellbeing is so important. Until we have that attitude that it trickles down and infiltrates all leaders, all people with managerial responsibilities, all people that have some oversight and influence on others like law professors, until that is really realized that we have to do things differently with an eye towards the psychological wellbeing of our people, we’ve got a long way to go.

JoAnn Hathaway:

Well, it does look like we’ve come to the end of our show. We’d like to thank our guests today, Bree Buchanan, for a wonderful program.

Molly Ranns:

Bree, if our listeners would like to follow up with you, what is the best way to reach you?

Bree Buchanan:

Sure. Well, I’m going to just give you my email address and I really will answer your emails and if I’ve brought something up that you want to know more about or if you’re struggling in a particular area, please reach out to me. Reach out to somebody. My email address is BREE 19 [email protected]. So now you know how old I am, Bree, 19 [email protected]. Please reach out,

Molly Ranns:

Bree. Thank you again. This has been another edition of the State Bar of Michigan On Balance Podcast.

JoAnn Hathaway:

I’m JoAnn Hathaway.

Molly Ranns:

And I’m Molly Rands. Until next time, thank you for listening.

Speaker 4:

Thank you for listening to the State Bar of Michigan On Balance Podcast, brought to you by the State Bar of Michigan, and produced by the broadcast professionals at Legal Talk Network. If you’d like more information about today’s show, please visit legal talk network.com. Subscribe Vieth Apple Podcasts and RSS. Find the State Bar of Michigan and Legal Talk Network on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or download Legal Talk Network’s free app in Google Play. And the views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of, nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network or the State Bar of Michigan or their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders, and subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer.